TOCChapter 20:Clark sank against the wall, catching his breath as if he'd just finished a momentous feat. In truth, he'd just managed to renew the makeshift bandage on his left arm. Taking off his coat, ripping his shirt into strips, and wrapping them around his arm had been more strenuous than he'd anticipated. Now he was panting to get in enough air, and the world seemed to be spinning around him. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on like this.
Grunting with frustration, he adjusted his position into one that was a bit more comfortable and tried to tell himself that all he needed were a few more moments of rest. But what then?
He was worried out of his mind that Lois still wasn’t back.
He’d tried to follow her, though he’d soon been forced to admit that he wasn’t up to even that simple task. He was useless right now when it came to keeping her safe. Clark clenched his hands into fists and tried to fight against the overwhelming sense of panic.
She could take care of herself and had done so many years prior to meeting him. Nigel St. John had no idea who he was up against if he tried to cross Lois Lane.
Other men had attempted that and paid dearly for it. A smile crept across his lips as he remembered how Lois had knocked him out the evening before - a man with superpowers. Had that really happened yesterday? It seemed like ages ago.
Surely, she would be able to deal with an aging former spy.
Or so he hoped.
If only he had an idea what time it was, how long Lois had been gone. But while he’d been alert enough to take his wallet with him the last time he’d been at home, he hadn’t thought to take a watch.
His stomach was a solid mass of queasiness and worry, so he couldn’t even take his level of hunger as indication how much time had passed. Not that he had very much experience in that department.
Clark closed his eyes and counted to five between taking breaths, trying to calm himself down and view things in a more rational light. Lois would need time to get to the bank and go through all the formalities. She had to make several calls and then come back to him. All of this took time, more time than he’d probably needed for his failed attempt at following Lois and to bandage his arm.
He had to be patient and trust Lois to keep herself safe while he couldn’t protect her.
It was easier thought than done.
Sitting around doing nothing wasn't in his nature. He hated every moment of it. But there also wasn't anything he could do about it.
He needed to rest. Maybe he'd be getting better. Another few deep breaths, and he might attempt to get up again. Perhaps he should find another place to hide, too, because there was still the possibility that the police officer had recognized him and was on his trail. He didn’t need to get arrested on top of his countless other problems. But moving was too much of an effort.
Though Clark tried to stay awake and keep his eyes on the corridor, he felt his eyelids droop. He was so incredibly tired. Just a few hours ago he’d woken up in the old radiology room, and already he felt exhausted. His limbs were heavy, barely cooperating with him. The pain in his chest, ribs and arm had coalesced to a constant throbbing ache that made it difficult to notice anything else.
Just a few more minutes of rest and maybe he’d feel better.
Or maybe he wouldn’t.
His consciousness started to fade in and out until he lost all track of time.
***
Clark woke to a panicked squeal. “Lex!”
He heard the staccato of heels hitting the floor in quick succession. Hands were on him, touching his chest. A sharp pain jostled him further awake, but he didn’t manage to pry his eyes open. Someone was close to his face. He could hear erratic breaths, feel a cold hand on his neck.
Something pressed into his chest, sending bolts of pain through him. He moaned.
“Oh, thank God, he’s still alive,” a woman next to him muttered. "Lex, I'm here. Everything will be okay."
"'m not Lex," Clark protested weakly.
"What did he say?" This was Lois’ voice. “Clark? Can you hear us? Are you awake?”
She shook him lightly, touching his right shoulder, mindful of his injuries. Her hand was a lot gentler. It felt good, reassuring. She was here with him, safe and sound.
"Clark, please, say something." A hiccupping sob escaped her. "Please be all right."
Her hand ran down his cheek. He wanted to capture it, squeeze it in a way that would tell her he was fine. She was with him again, no longer in the clutches of St. John.
But he couldn't move.
All he managed was another low moan.
"You need to help him!" Lois cried.
Something warm and wet hit his face. With tremendous effort, he pried his eyes open, her beautiful face blurry before him.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she whispered. "You're awake. I was so scared we hadn't made it in time."
Clark tried to smile for her. His voice barely worked. "Lois."
His eyelids drooped again with irresistible force.
A cold hand touched his wrist. "His pulse is fast and thready. I'm afraid he won't be with us much longer." The voice belonged to that other woman, the less gentle one. It had to be Kelly.
"Kent?" She shook him again. "Are you with us? I need to give you the serum or you'll die. Do you remember our agreement?"
"He does, and he's aware of your conditions," Lois growled. "Now stop stalling. You need to help him."
Kelly's reply sounded like through clenched teeth. "I want to hear it from him."
Clark gasped, suddenly feeling as if someone had sucked the oxygen from the room. When had breathing become so difficult? He fought to gulp in enough air.
"I…know…price," he forced out. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. "Do it."
His chest protested against the effort it took to draw more breaths. A wave of panic washed over him, and he fought to keep breathing, to stay awake. His head swam.
As if through thick fog, he felt hands on his arm rolling up his sleeve.
There was something tight around his arm. He managed to open his eyes and watched with dread as Kelly readied the syringe.
His vision grayed, but he blinked back the dark spots. A shiver ran through him as her hand approached with the syringe. The needle pierced his arm. It was unsettling. He tried not to flinch, not to pull back.
The panic surged. Every cell in his brain blared a warning.
<They'll study you, dissect you like a frog.> Breathing became harder. His vision faded and the sounds around him turned into a muffled jumble of incomprehensible noise. Now and again, words made it through the fog in his brain.
Lois whispered. "Stay with me, Clark. You need to fight."
Something cold was injected into his arm. He could almost feel it spread through his body, while a gentle hand continued to caress his cheek. Clark focused on Lois' touch, trying to ignore everything else - the terrifying lack of air and the other woman's hands on his body, cold and mechanical. He felt metal on his chest.
A choked sob escaped Lois. "Everything will be all right again. Keep fighting."
Another voice reached his ear. "His lungs seem to be clear," Kelly said quietly. “I’m not sure what’s going on. He…”
The rest of what she said was lost due to the blood rushing in his ears. He still fought for every gulp of air, his lungs burning. Time was hard to grasp. Clark couldn't have said if minutes passed or hours.
Lois' voice once again made it into his consciousness. "Is he going to make it?"
She said something else, but Clark felt himself fade, drifting to unconsciousness. Her words became a tangled mess of muffled sounds, losing their meaning as the world around him vanished into nothingness.
For a while he drifted in and out. Sometimes he heard voices, occasionally he understood words. Lois’ hand on his cheek was his only anchor to reality, the single constant in his world of pain and fear and the fight for his next breath. He held onto that reassuring warmth on his clammy skin, grateful that it stayed with him each time he woke until he slipped away again.
But eventually, breathing got easier. The warmth of Lois' hand guided him to wakefulness. His eyelids still were incredibly heavy, but the words he heard started to make sense again.
"How is he?" Clark heard Lois' voice.
He wanted to say something, but his mouth felt so dry and his voice wouldn't work.
"Improving at last." The relief in Kelly's voice was obvious.
"Oh, thank God!" Lois gave his right shoulder a soft squeeze. "Did you hear that, Clark? Keep fighting! I need you."
The pain in her voice tore at his heart. He'd heard it once before when she'd cried over his presumably dead body. He'd hurt her so badly then. He wasn't going to let that happen again.
With an effort, he loosened his tongue from where it was stuck on the roof of his mouth.
"Need you too," he croaked weakly.
"Clark?" Her relief spilled in hot tears down her cheeks that dripped down on him, wetting his face. "You're awake."
With some difficulty, Clark pried his eyes open. But he saw Lois' face only for a moment between his eyelids drifting closed again and Kelly pushing her aside.
"How are you feeling?" Kelly asked.
He wasn't sure. The pain in his chest was gone. Instead, an odd tingling sensation spread through his body, so intense it was uncomfortable. Like a current running through his body in waves.
"Better, I think," he managed. "Tired."
"You're healing." There was a slight hitch to Kelly's voice.
As Clark got his eyes to open a second time, he saw the doctor’s loving smile, a warm gleam in her otherwise cold expression. It was unsettling, intimate in a way that made him want to shrink back. Her fingers twitched as if she wanted nothing more than to touch him. But then she pulled her hand back and her face hardened, her stare suddenly full of hatred.
Though he wanted nothing from this woman, though her show of affection had rather made him recoil, this sudden change of attitude was painful in its own way.
Clark searched for Lois, hoping to see a familiar, smiling face. But once again he lost the battle against his drooping eyelids.
He let out a slow breath, fighting against the overwhelming sense of loneliness that always took hold of him when people looked at him with that particular expression of disgust he'd just seen in Kelly's eyes. It reminded him of Trask and the people of Metropolis during the heatwave or when they'd blamed him for Luthor's death.
It shouldn't rattle him like this. There would always be people who didn't like him. Kelly had probably only just remembered he wasn't Luthor.
As Clark looked at the doctor again, she straightened, and every single muscle in her body went rigid.
"You need to rest," she said, suddenly all business again. "I had to use both doses of serum on you, which means I don't have any more than that."
Her jaw was tightly set, but her eyes betrayed her fear and anger.
"The clone's healing capabilities should have worked longer than they did." She fixed Clark with an icy glare. "But I'm guessing the strain of using the powers his stem cells temporarily gave you let the effects of the last dose dwindle."
"You know I had no choice but to use the powers," Clark growled. Her accusing tone let him forget about how tired he still felt. None of this had been his idea. He pursed his lips. "And when I ran away, I was still thinking that this body was mine. The powers felt sluggish, but I thought that was because of whatever you'd done to me."
His chest was heaving with every breath he took, his arms were trembling with fury.
"The powers were sluggish because the clone was imperfect," Kelly said tersely. "He didn't have your strength. And he needed a lot more rest than you do, I'd guess. Lex always sent him to sleep early. When he stopped listening to him, the clone's deterioration accelerated dramatically."
Clark's throat tightened with the guilt he still felt about the awfully short life of the man who could have been his brother.
"Are you telling me that it was me who killed him faster?"
He felt a gentle squeeze from Lois' hand, her quiet reassurance that she was still there, that at least she was on his side. Her eyes were fixed on Kelly, her chin raised in defiance and a quiet warning.
It was comforting to know that he wouldn't be at the receiving end if she felt the need to lash out.
Kelly, however, just rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Look, I don't care what happened to the clone. And frankly, I don't care what happens to you either. But for the time being, I need your help saving Lex. Your blood should be able to do what the clone's blood couldn't."
Clark felt sick to his stomach at the prospect. "Will he get powers, too?"
Why had he asked that? He wasn't even sure he wanted to know the answer.
"Temporarily," Dr. Kelly replied. "These cells repair the damage, but they can't survive in a foreign body for long. They're too few to generate enough energy for their intense needs."
Once again, Clark thought he saw contempt flash across her face. He tried to ignore the notion. Without his special abilities, she wouldn't have been able to save Luthor at all. But unfortunately, that thought wasn't reassuring either. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying not to get lost in dark thoughts.
Lois gave his shoulder another comforting squeeze. Her warmth radiated through him, a gentle reminder that she didn't consider him an abomination.
Kelly continued, oblivious to his discomfort. "However, your cells apparently produce some sort of regenerative factor that stimulates the normal tissue to generate more cells, even if it usually wouldn't."
She got up and eyed him with little more respect than she might have had for a lab rat. "Bottom line is, if you don't want to kill yourself, get plenty of rest. The clone's cells can either generate superpowers or heal you. They can't do both for more than a very short time."
“I noticed,” Clark said tightly. “Don’t worry. I’ll do my best to be a good guinea pig. Maybe you should try giving Luthor that same speech.”
“He’s right,” Lois chimed in. “He didn’t ask for any of this. It’s not his fault Lex attacked him and chased him through half of Metropolis!”
He quietly mourned the loss of contact as she got up to get into a full-blown rant.
Some of the tension seeped out of him as he heard her defend him, despite everything that had happened, despite his lies and deceptions. With a pang of guilt he realized that - when she’d told Superman she loved him - she’d really meant it. The fear of rejection that had accompanied him all his youth while he’d been developing his power had no room in his heart when she was near. That was what made her so special. She’d seen him swallow a bomb and hadn’t freaked out. She’d embraced his presence, given him a name, and defended him ever since - even to himself.
Now she stood with her arms akimbo, defiance written all over her face while she gave Kelly a piece of her mind. Clark would have loved to listen in, but exhaustion won over once again and he couldn’t help but drift back into oblivion.
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